Of Motus and the Unfinished Castle
Welcome, with a sorrow too tired for irony, to Motus’ castle.
In the age following the great reckoning and shortly after the great awakening, in the land of Catenoria, there lived a wizard of considerable renown. His name was spoken with reverence by the townspeople in every house and every town from the low valleys to the mountaintop villages, to the eastern foothills, to the western shores. For generations, they had been told by their fathers, and their fathers’ fathers, and their fathers’ fathers’ fathers that when the rumors of the shadow of the second invading army fell across the land, they ought not to worry. Yes, there was a first invading army, but they were not very strong and they did not last very long.
Generation after generation, day after day, the townspeople went on about their work, but they were waiting, sometimes anxiously, and sometimes not. Sometimes they forgot about the stories of what was to come. The townspeople were a people who truly believed, with all of their hearts, that their rescue had already been arranged.
What the townspeople did not yet know, as no one had journeyed far enough to see, was that Mr. Motus was still very hard at work, building his great castle. Deep in the high country, beyond the hills where the oldest trails ended, many, many years ago, Mr. Motus had begun to raise a castle of great ambition. The foundations had been laid, the outer walls rose thick and proud against the sky, but the inner rooms were much unfinished. Mr. Motus worked alone, as this he preferred, but soon you will see that Mr. Motus will deeply regret not accepting even the slightest of help.
The maps he had planned to draw for the townspeople were, in his mind, detailed and illuminated, showing every passage and every hall, and every road and trail and river and boundary of the lands surrounding the castle, so that no man, woman, or child who came under his protection would ever be lost within it. Mr. Motus had no intention of failing the townspeople, not ever. But as a man should be, Mr. Motus was focused on building the castle. He couldn’t draw the maps without the inner castle being finished, else the maps would be inaccurate and lead the townspeople to walk in circles and in squares and to never get to where they were meaning to go. The parchment lay spread and half-marked upon his worktable, patient as only unfinished things can be.
Mr. Motus heard them first, then the rumors came down from the hills to the townspeople. The word spread quickly, far and wide. It was time.
No, Mr. Motus was not ready. The day had not yet arrived, not truly, but the townspeople did not know this, of course. They remembered what their fathers, and their fathers’ fathers, and their fathers’ fathers’ fathers had told them. They packed what they could carry and began the long, long journey toward the castle. Group by group, they left their homes and their hearths and the familiar weight of the lives they had always known. Only a few of them looked back as they left, but they knew, through the long chain of legend, that on ahead there was a great safe place for them. They didn’t want to leave, but they knew they must. And now we must skip the townspeople’s not so boring journey to hurry this story along. I have so much to tell you.
The first travelers reached the top of the hill and caught a glimpse of the castle walls rising against the grey sky. They moved faster and faster and faster. By the time the shadow of the entrance gate fell upon them, they were nearly running, their weariness forgotten, and their fears dissolved into something quite close to happiness.
Finally, at the entrance of the castle, they saw him for the first time. Mr. Motus’s face bore the look of a wise man who had seen something, or someone, arrive well before he was prepared to receive. The anxiously excited, relieved townspeople were suddenly neither excited nor relieved, only anxious. Mr. Motus raised his voice so that all could hear, and it was a kind, gentle voice: “My dearest townspeople, I know you have traveled from far and are expecting great things, but I do not have a message of great news.” He paused, then, in a quieter voice, he said, “I am not ready. The day is not yet here.”
For a moment, the only sound was the whisper of the message being passed to the back for those who couldn’t quite hear. Then, the mumbling, low and spreading, and with it the muffled sounds of anxious cries and a few loud, angry yells. They had come too far and left too much behind.
They will have to make do with what Mr. Motus had here in front of them.
And so, Mr. Motus hurried. He worked as fast as he possibly could. He lined a handful of rooms with thin mattresses set against the stone walls, laid out blankets, but there were no pillows, and lit such fires as the unfinished hearths would hold. It was something, but he knew, with the clarity of a man measuring his own failure in real time, that it was not nearly enough.
More townspeople came over the hill, and more behind them, and more still, until the road from the valley was never empty. For all its great size, the castle had not been built to receive everyone all at once, especially a castle that was not yet finished. You see, Mr. Motus and the townspeople quickly realized the difference between a great thing built with great intention and a great thing fast pressed into service far before its time.
The townspeople wandered throughout the castle and around the fields. There were no maps, no signs or arrows above the archways, no helpers stationed at the junctions to say this way or that way or that hall or this one, be careful that isn’t finished yet, please watch your head, or wait here until a room is made ready. They moved in straight lines through passages in the half-dark. The castle was too full, overly full. Townspeople stood outside in the growing cold, pressing at the gates that would not yield, not understanding the reason, and receiving no answer.
A few days, then weeks, then months passed, and Mr. Motus looked at what a mess he had. He did not know their names, not the names of those already inside, nor those still walking, nor those pressing at the unyielding gates. He did not know from which town or valley each had come, or how many had arrived, or how many were yet on the road. He did not know their age, or their family size, or if they were already on the ledger. Yes, there was a ledger. The great ledger he had meant to keep, in which every name and every town and every need would have been recorded against the day of their coming. More and more people, and the ledger more and more empty.
Welcome, with a sorrow too tired for irony, to Motus’ castle.
Same, same, but not the same at all.
Most of the freight industry has heard rumblings about MOTUS. If you haven’t, just search “MOTUS” on LinkedIn, X, or Facebook. Since its May 14th launch, motor carriers have struggled to access their records, update insurance filings, or simply log in. Pages loop, error messages flash, and we are, collectively, a very confused group of people.
It is an unfinished castle with gates that only sometimes open, and no one seems positioned to help us know this way, or that way, or not yet, or wait here. And if we must wait, for how long exactly?
Motusbugs.com has been tracking known bugs to help navigate issues. Here’s a sample of what’s been reported:
“I received a letter from FMCSA/MOTUS saying my authority is suspended, but I checked — my BOC-3 is active, my BMC-91X is active, I paid the reinstatement fee of $80, and the status is pending. I am stranded at a truck stop right now.”
“I am a transportation service provider and the new entrant safety audit system is on a loop. You go to the FMCSA New Entrant Safety Audit login, it takes you to login.gov, once logged into login.gov, it takes you back to the new entrant safety audit login screen. It is a loop.”
“At least one carrier is showing an ‘Active’ operating authority status, but I can verify on L&I and on external tools that their authority is NOT active.”
“Brokers cannot work with us as they say our DOT/MC shows as inactive, but in Motus DOT and MC has an active status, cannot reach FMCSA already 3 days, they dont answer calls, they dont answer emails”
And this one, from Facebook:
”This was a nightmare and took us almost 5 days while doing it right. I finally had to call them, 3 hour wait for call back and they pushed it through. Now, we’ve had zero access to our account for almost a month and they have no idea why. Cannot upload insurance or anything into their portal.”
The Great Ledger Is Nearly Empty
I wish login issues, pending statuses, or spinny wheels were our only issues, but unfortunately, they are not. The new MOTUS All Carrier file contains 61,812 rows. Yes, that’s a lot, but the legacy SAFER dataset it replaced contained 1,860,604 …
*insert calculator* 1,860,604 – 61,812 = ?
1,798,792 records that have not yet been added to MOTUS.
47,932 of the 61,812 have an operating status of Active.
44,287 of the 61,812 are Active, Motor Carrier of Property (Except Household Goods).
But wait, there’s more. So much more.
In the new data architecture (if we want to call it that), operating authority no longer rolls up under a single USDOT. Rather, there is a single row for each operating authority type.
Per the FMCSA, One Docket Number per New Authority: Motus will assign one unique docket number for each newly granted authority, even if you request multiple authorities in the same application.
Note: Docket numbers for existing authorities will not change. Multiple existing authorities will continue to share the same docket number.
Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card? Or perhaps, a thousand of them.
Driving home from Mass a couple of Sundays ago, June 14th to be exact, I spotted a seemingly sketchy semi-truck pulled over by the Highway Patrol. Naturally, I looked into the company using SearchCarriers.com.
The California-based carrier was issued an out-of-service order on May 19, 2026, and yet, on June 14th, here they were, operating on the interstate far from California.
When I got home, I ran the USDOT in MOTUS, which shows them as active, with operating authority reinstated on January 27, 2026. The May 19th OOS order is nowhere to be found. And as of today, June 30th, MOTUS still shows this motor carrier as active.
Safer: Out of Service
MOTUS: Active
Truth: Unknown
I posted this out-of-service-but-maybe-active motor carrier on LinkedIn, and the comments provided more insight into the issues with MOTUS:
“MOTUS is a joke. On the FMCSA snapshot page, it shows active entities, and in MOTUS they appear inactive — and vice versa. Who are we supposed to believe? If all the APIs pull from MOTUS or FMCSA, then they’re all wrong. We’re basically blind.”
“I am a good carrier that MOTUS shows as a hazmat hauler when we are not. The data is broken in both directions at once. It is waving the bad actors through the gate and choking the honest ones out. Same broken system, opposite victims. I am fighting tooth and nail right now to keep my authority while we are in the middle of our renewal. Underwriters are refusing to write us because the system shows hazmat — even the ones who understand it’s a programming error. So here is where I am headed: either I pay some rate I did not earn, or I settle for less coverage than I want, just to stay legal. After years in business and fighting through the freight recession, the thing that may take us out is a coding error.”
“The discrepancies are mind-blowing. Insurance companies can’t send in filings, forcing revocations. The system is auto-adjusting certain cargo categories as Class 9 hazmat, altering insurance requirements — but it can’t even receive the new filings it’s demanding. What a cluster.”
“For legitimate carriers, MOTUS has been a nightmare. It seems like a much more dumbed-down system, with its biggest concern being that you can be ID/face-checked upon account creation.”
The carrier I spotted on the side of the road isn’t the only one, and even worse, carriers are showing as active in MOTUS without any insurance on file.
If the FMCSA has directed carriers, brokers, law enforcement, insurance agents, and everyone else to use MOTUS as the system of record, and MOTUS says a carrier is active while that carrier has no insurance or no true operating authority, then what legal ground does anyone stand on?
And still, there’s more.
New Authority Types?
The authority types listed in the MOTUS daily registration PDF do not match those on the FMCSA's Types of Operating Authority webpage.
MOTUS:
FMCSA’s Types of Operating Authority webpage:
Motor Carrier of Property (except Household Goods)
Motor Carrier of Household Goods (HHG - Moving Companies)
Broker of Property (except Household Goods)
Broker of Household Goods (HHG)
United States-based Enterprise Carrier of International Cargo (except Household Goods)
United States-based Enterprise Carrier of International Household Goods OP
Other Authorities
Freight Forwarder
Motor Passenger Carrier
Non-North America-Domiciled Motor Carriers
Mexico-based Carriers for Motor Carrier Authority to Operate Beyond U.S.
Municipalities and Commercial Zones on the U.S.-Mexico Border
Mexican Certificate of Registration for Foreign Motor Carriers and
Foreign Motor Private Carriers Under 49 U.S.C. 13902
No Given Name was bad. Now we have no name at all.
Registrations are making it through MOTUS without a legal name attached. A legal name does exist. It’s on the business registration. I want to assume this is just a glitch and placeholder data. I do hope someone catches this before granting operating authority.
Fraud & Chameleons.
“Thanks to President Trump, we are delivering a new registration system that will stop fraud dead in its tracks and strengthen oversight on shady carriers. And for good, honest drivers who follow the rules — our new system will improve customer service, enhance reliability, and cut down on red tape.”
— Secretary Sean Duffy, Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Launches New Anti-Fraud Registration System for America’s Trucking Industry.
… Oh, boy.
Using SearchCarriers.com Lineups, I’ve compiled a list of USDOTs from the new registration PDFs that MOTUS publishes daily and tagged each entity based on my initial findings. Thus far, only two of the 94 I’m tracking have been issued operating authority. I will continue to monitor the list to see whether MOTUS is doing its job, or not.
Speaking of its job. From what I can tell, it seems MOTUS can only identify chameleon carriers among the companies already in its system. If the matching record doesn’t exist in MOTUS (you know, like the 1,798,792 that have yet to be migrated), it avoids the chameleon traps entirely.
Like this one:
With only a fraction of the company census file migrated, I have no idea how MOTUS is supposed to do what they told us it would.
Random numbers, because why not.
When I was a freight broker in 2017, it was a much different time, and our carrier vetting process was quite sophisticated.
Does the USDOT number start with a 7 or lower?
Do they have insurance?
If yes to both, you’re good to go.
Unfortunately, for everyone who used the logical, chronological system to judge a transportation entity, MOTUS said nope, you’re not doing that anymore.
Per the FMCSA, USDOT Number and Docket Number Randomization: To help prevent fraud, MOTUS will randomize all newly issued USDOT Numbers and operating authority docket numbers. Existing USDOT and docket numbers will not change.
‘USDOT Number’ out, ‘USDOT Alphanumeric’ in.
“Motus displays suffixes at the end of new USDOT. Numbers to help users identify the regulated entity type and the specific registrations granted by FMCSA. … Suffixes are not a vehicle marking requirement.”
Petty UI things.
I do not have a MOTUS account, and I am not logged in, but I do use MOTUS to search public records. If I stay on the page too long, a modal appears, threatening to log me out of an account I do not have and am not logged into, and offering a button to stay logged in to an account that I do not have and have never logged in to.
12 clicks later…
We should not have to scroll down to the Operating Authority Registrations list and click to open it just to make sure the operating status is active. In this case, it is not.
More not-logged-in nonsense.
I should not be presented with a button to click to reapply as a motor carrier whose authority was revoked…
The tech bros deserve a raise.
The datasets that we’ve relied on for however many years have been turned upside down, flipped inside out, shaken and stirred, and still aren’t accurate. I’m not sure anyone fully anticipated how different the new data would be from what we had before, probably not even the people who built MOTUS.
Every developer [more respectfully, tech bro] who built carrier vetting tools, compliance platforms, insurance integrations, or any kind of freight tech on top of the SAFER data now has to untangle an even larger web of newly restructured datasets, renamed and different columns, inaccurate data, missing field values, and still more problems that have yet to be discovered. The ones who do the hard work, like Garrett at SearchCarriers.com, deserve tremendous acknowledgment for the scope of the mess they have to deal with.
*A special good luck to every vibe-coded carrier vetting tool that was built on SAFER data and is now attempting to make sense of what MOTUS has put in its place.
**And a sincere warning to anyone and everyone relying on vibe-coded tools to make compliance decisions: Be careful. We have a gigantic mess on our hands, and ChatGPT probably won’t be the one to clean it up.
Please, just finish the castle.
We are well over a month into the MOTUS rollout, allegedly twenty years into the build, and there have been no official acknowledgments of the scope of what is broken or half-working or unfinished, no timeline given for the remaining 1.7+ million records, and no clear answer on what to do when discrepancies arise in the new source of truth.
I cannot emphasize this enough: THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY RELIES ON THIS DATA. Right now, the source of truth is telling freight brokers to hire carriers they shouldn’t be hiring, and underwriters that all flatbed operators haul hazmat, and troopers that out-of-service carriers are legally authorized to operate.
Freight brokers, motor carriers, insurance agents, law enforcement, and everyone else who works in freight are wandering around in the dark chambers of an unfinished castle, bewildered and without a map, anxiously awaiting someone, from somewhere, to show up and finish what was started.
…
Man, what a mess, and yet, somehow, as always, the fault of no one.
